Prettifying the world one nail at a time.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

We have a new King! King Willem Alexander. Two hours ago, the Queen abdicated and The Crown Prince signed the document and became King. To celebrate this joyous occation, I have a mani with all the colours of our country:

I used Essence "Fame Fatal" for the red, Etos Long Lasting for the white, Hema no. 10 for the blue and Catrice "For Bright Guys" for the orange, topping it off with Hema "Glitter Coral". I braided the red-white-blue according to Cutepolish' tutorial. The orange nails are "royaled-up" with rhinestones from Primark, glitter from the "Fantastic Metallic" decoration kit of Essence, silver beads from W7 and pearly beads from Catrice's "Cotton Candy". First I placed the rhinestones in some top coat, then two glitters, and then I arranged the beads with a tiny dotting tool into the crown shape.

Monday, April 29, 2013

I just love how this design can give such different results, while always optically lengthening the nails <3 Today I show the same design, for which a simple instruction can be foundhere, but with all pastel spring colours, including two of the new Essence Colour and Go nail polishes: "Hello Marshmallow!" and "Upper Green Side":

source: Essence.eu

I also used Hema no. 19 for the yellow and Essence "Alpha Better Gamma" for the pink. I Started with a base of Hello Marshmallow and then alternated all other polishes to get te following result:

Hello Marshmallow suffered a bit from bubbling, but it's ok. The colour is really nice and there is a very subtle blue shimmer that makes it sparkle a bit. Gorgeous.

Sunday, April 28, 2013

This might be especially interesting for those of you who live in The Netherlands, Belgium, France or Germany. I will review and swatch 2 of the new nail polishes of HEMA, glitter nail polishes called (first time ever they have names (albeit not such exciting names) instead of just a number!) "Glitter Pink" and "Glitter Fuchsia". HEMA has a whole range of new nail polishes, including holos, duochromes and pastels, and a huge amount of fast drying polishes in flashy colours. But first, the glitter:

Let's start with Glitter Fuchsia:

This is two coats over one coat of NYC "Fashion Ave Fuchsia", adding the base to ensure opacity, although I'm not sure it really needed it. Then I added some topcoat and could NOT stop staring at the beautiful sparkles... <3 It's a deep fuchsia jelly with tons of silver glitter. Application is very easy, no dabbing needed.

But as with all nail polish, I must try some nail art. I did a simple cloud mani with two other Hema polishes, namely no. 22 for the green and a black one. But first I used a matte top coat, also from HEMA, to mattify the glitter... WOW! Look at it!

I adored this mani, but, as with all manis, it left me after 2 days (that is because I do dishes and clean stuff, but have not found gloves yet that fit my tiny hands). But no worries, I had another glitter bomb! This is Glitter Pink in direct sunlight:

Sparkle sparkle sparkle! This is two coats over Bourjois "Rose Cupcake". The polish consists of a light pink jelly with silver and pink iridescent big glitters and silver micro glitter. Application is good, sometimes it needs some dabbing but that is not a problem. The different glitters are even better visible in daylight (so out of direct sunlight):

Again, some nail art, with Hema no. 12. and a silver striper from Essence. I taped off all parts but where the blue is and hence created a v-gap and then added the silver.

So that's it! I can't wait to acquire the other new HEMA polishes, so if money permits, you'll be seeing more of them :)

Sorry for this very late FoF post, it's not even Saturday here anymore, but oh well..

One of our friends is came back from spending a few months abroad and had some nail art requests, one of them being ladybugs! I did her nails, the Lieutenant's and later on, even mine, since the design is extraordinarily cute :) So here goes:

I used Hema nail polish no. 5 for the red, and Rimmel "Black Out" for the head and black dots, and a black striper from Max for the straight line. For the white eyes, I used Etos Long Lasting nail polish in white.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Short review today: Essence's Nail & Cuticle Butter Stick and Cuticle Remover Gel. The butter stick is a nourishing and moisturizing combination of vitamin E, shea butter, lanolin and beeswax. It is easily applicable: one just smears a little on each nail and then massages it gently. It smells nice and it is not messy. I let my nails enjoy it for an hour and then washed it off, and my nails were all shiny and healthy. My cuticles looked happy too.

Nails with the butter:

Next step:

I wanted to make my cuticles neat again and for that I've been using this product. Read the instructions carefully, this stuff should never meet your eyes. It is easily applicable and after applying one lets it soak in for a few minutes. The you can start pushing back the cuticles and removing excess skin on the nail. It does not only make the cuticles soft, it nourishes them as well. Win-win :) The end result:

I'm really happy with the products and they are cheap! No more than 2 euros per product. Excellent :)xoxoxoCaptain

Monday, April 22, 2013

So the story continues. The tea bag method worked well, it lasted for more than a day. I wanted to try one more thing, and after a tip from a follower, I decided on nail glue:

See how the tea bag is giving in:

This is, as you can see, from Essence. It's tricky stuff, so be sure to read the instructions carefully! It will glue skin together in no time. I just applied a little bit over the tear and let it dry:

Then I polished my nails as usual. It would last for 2 days, then I repeated the treatment. A week after the initial nail incident, this happened:

Play It Blue applies easily, although coverage is, like Vanilla Love, is not optimal, so three coats are a must. However, since it has a matte finish, it dries very fast, so it's no problem. Here is three coats over a base coat:

Daylight:

Flash:

I adore it! It's really eye-catching and it makes my skin look super tan (even though I haven't seen sun in ages!).

Now for the caviar, I came up with a design that incorporates all colours from Candy Shock (colours, not polishes). This was done more than a week later, after the nail break incident and after I cut all my nails because I was sick of it:

I used Play It Blue as my base, and sponged on lilac (Essence "Hello Marshmellow!"), pastel orange (Catrice "Salmon & Garfunkel") and pastel yellow (Catrice "Vanilla Love"). Unfortunately it bubbled like mad, but from afar it looks really sweet.

For the accent nail, I first placed the *blingbling* on my nail. Then I put some gooey top coat on the rest of the nail and poured the caviar on it. I pressed it lightly and removed the excess beads with a toothpick. Then, when that had dried, I put on some of the Essence Quick Dry top coat, to seal it all in.

So what do you think? I loooove the caviar, it's pearly and different and pretty <3 Perfect for future nail art!

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Hey Sweeties!Ok so remember when I broke my nail? At the time, I didn't have much around, so I temporarily saved it with tape. Temporarily, because it lasted for about half a day. Somewhere I heard about these patches (that I didn't have and couldn't find), and how you can mimic them with tea bags! So this is Part Two: Trying The Tea Bag.I cut out a small rectangle from a teabag. I put a basecoat on my nail and while that was still wet, I placed the tea bag with tweezers on my nail. I pressed it with my finger. Then I added another layer of basecoat.

I waited until it was fully hardened and then I filed off the excess pieces. Here you see my index finger still with the tape, while I'm working on my middle finger.

Afer that I applied 3 coats of my nail polish (Catrice "Vanilla Love"), here you see the difference between the tea bag and the tape:

Unfortunately, later that night, this happened:

So: I cleaned my nail:

It's baaaaad....

I took another piece of tea bag. This time I wanted to try and cover my entire nail, to see if that would be prettier:

Again: basecoat, tea bag, basecoat, let it dry and file:

I started with my nail polish, only to discover that it was really bumpy, the tea bag.

So I decided to apply a ridge filler:

This is the result with 2 more coats of polish and a topcoat.

In the end, I can't decide between a local piece and a nail-covering piece. The nail covering piece may make things smoother, but it requires a lot of ridge filler and it is very tricky to polish neatly around the edges. The local piece leaves a little texture that isn't nice, but perhaps with ridge filler that would be solved. Anyway, this lasted for a whole day. Now mind you, this is my right hand. Had it been my left, I'm sure it would've lasted longer.